The Truth
by EastYorkDisneyFan
Summary: What I think should have happened in season two. Rated PG for some posible course languge.
1. The Decision

EXPLANATION: **1.)** I do not own Sea Quest or any of its characters. **2.)** For the sake of this story the building of the second Sea Quest took about 1 year and six months instead of 2 as it did in the show. **3.)** Ben and Katharine stayed on Sea Quest as while as Dr. Westphalen, however Tony and Dr. Smith also joined the crew. **4.)** Lucas originally lied about his age when he came on board, he was only 14. Also I will use a date of August 21 2004 for his birth. **5.)** Also of note there will bee references to both the TV series and to this site. **6.)** Also Tony was moved out of Lucas's room about two weeks into the tour as he complained he wasn't getting much sleep as Lucas spent most o the night on his computer.

THE TRUTH

CHAPTER 1

THE DECISION

Lucas woke up one morning in with pain in his abdomen that he had never felt before. He wasn't sure what he should do, should he just tough it out and if it got worse see the doctor or should he just go to her right away. He looked at his clock and saw it said 6:30 am; he really wasn't used to waking up that early so he decided that maybe he should go and see the Doctor. He walked out of his room that was labeled Chief Computer Systems Annalist/ Mammal Engineering/ Resident Teen Genius. The first one was the official title that the UEO had given to him for helping design the new computer programs on board the new SeaQuest and for basically keeping them all running. The second title was a little joke from his previous quarters on the first SeaQuest, and the third had been Lt. Ben Krieg's idea, he had originally suggested "Caution Resident Teen Genius" but Lucas wasn't to happy about that.

Lucas made the decision to go see the Doctor, he got up and exit is room. He looked at the door and chuckled at this. His abs started to hurt him even more now. He headed down the hall towards Med Bay when he ran into the Captain who immediately asked him.

"Lucas why are you up so early and why are you roaming the decks of SeaQuest in nothing but a pair of boxers and a t-shirt"

Lucas thought for a moment should he lie to the Captain and make up some excuse or should he tell him the truth. He decided to tell him the truth.

He said "I woke up with pain in my abdomen and decided to go see the Doctor about it."

The Captain then decided to help the teen get there and also he new that as the Captain of the ship the UEO had appointed him Lucas's legal guardian in the absence of his father who was off working on a second World Power project. When they got to the Med Bay, Dr. Westphalen had just arrived and was getting ready just in case she needed to treat any patients today. Most of the time she just took care of minor cuts and bruises and sometimes in the case of Lucas minor electrical burns. She looked up from her office and was shocked to see the Captain and Lucas in Med Bay at this hour; she immediately suspected that there must be something wrong with the teen. She opened the door and told Lucas to get up on one of the examining tables. Normally the teen put up a fuss when she said this, but today he just lay down on it without a word to her. She figured that he must be really sick today or he had injured himself somehow. She went over to him and stuck a thermometer in his mouth to take his temperature. She noticed that it was about two degrees above normal not to serious but it could be the first sign of infection.

She then asked "Lucas why have you come in to Med Bay this morning."

"I woke up at about 6:30 this morning with pain in my abdomen." say Lucas.

"Where does it hurt the most?"

Lucas lifted up his shirt revealing his somewhat scrawny frame, he then pointed to the area just above his right hip. The Doctor begins felling his abdomen there when the teen immediately said that it hurt.

"Lucas have you had pain in this area before?"

" No, not in that area before, do you think it might be my appendix?" asked Lucas.

She then left the room for a minute and came back with a portable ultrasound machine which she used on his abdomen. Well she was doing this Lucas commented that he had had this done to him before, after one of the beatings from his father. He also said that they had needed to rush him to surgery right away and remove his spleen to stop the internal bleeding he had. The Doctor, as had the Captain, of course had known about this and as few of his other injuries from what he had told him. She also knew of some other scars that Lucas had that were not mentioned in his medical file and she wasn't sure why. Also there was a section from the time when he was four to six years old that was sealed off to even her, she had often questioned Lucas about this and he usually just gave her the answer that it was something she didn't need to know. It made her wonder all the more what was Lucas hiding, what had happened to him in those years that someone would want to seal his medical file. After she finished with the test she said to him.

"I'm afraid that your appendix is going to have to come out young man."

"Ah Man that really sucks. I guess that means surgery then right?"

"Yes unfortunately it does and also that means you will have to spend a couple of days here and then another week on LIGHT duty, and no swimming for at least three weeks."

Lucas looked at her and just mooned. He then decided to tell them something about himself that only he and his parents knew about him. He decided to tell them what was in the sealed portion of his medical file.

Special thanks goes to my new Beta Reader wolenczak2004


	2. Secrets Revealed

Then Lucas said to Dr. Westphalen and Captain Bridger.

"There was something I want to tell you about my past and I also want to show you what's in the sealed portions of my medical file. Is it ok if I use the computer in your office doc?"

She was puzzled by this, but told him to go ahead. She and Bridger helped him into her office, where Lucas immediately opened up his medical file and begin hacking into the sealed portions of it, Dr. Westphalen just stared at the information in front of her, and she looked over to the Captain and said.

"Nathan is you seeing what I am?"

The Captain nodded, he was just shocked as she was. The two of them looked at Lucas with a questioning gaze. Lucas then looked up at them and said.

"When I born, I was both blind and mentally challenged. When I was four years old my parents took me to a Doctor that my father had found, they told me that this doctor would help me to be normal. When we got to the doctor's office he talked about doing an operation on me. I later found out all the information you see in the file when I decided to hack into it well I was at Stanford. I found out that he had operated on my brain and placed a sort of computer processor in my brain. He had also replaced portions of my eyes with video cameras to give me somewhat normal sight."

He looked up at the two adults in the room; they just stared back at him shocked that someone would do this to a child.

"When I was six I had to go back to that doctor because I had developed a complication from the first operation. The Doctor had to operate on me again and put a shunt into the back of my head as I had developed something called hydrocephalus."

Captain Bridger immediately grabbed Lucas and held him in a tight embrace like he had done so many times before. He was now remembering the night when Lucas had first told him of his abuse. It was back during the first tour of duty. I had walked in to the teen's room to find out what he would be doing well they had two weeks of shore leave and I saw him crying well reading an e-mail from someone. I thought it a little unusual as Lucas was always in control of the emotions that he displayed in public.

A few months ago.

"_What's wrong, why are you crying?"_

Lucas looked up to see the captain standing there he brushed the tears from his eyes and said "I just got an e-mail from my dad's secretary telling me that my dad was unable to look after me for the two weeks and I have to make other arrangements."

_The captain had been shocked by this. How could someone treat there son like this, it was disgraceful. How Lucas could even call this man his father was beyond comprehension._

" _Have you made other arrangements yet?"_

_The teen just shock his head no and berried his head in his hands, as he drew himself up into the fettle position on his bed with his back to the auqatube._

"_Would you like to come and spend sometime with me on my Island?"_

_Lucas looked up at him and wiped some tears away from his eyes with the sleeve of his turtleneck and said._

"_Do you really mean that or are you just trying to get me off the ship?"_

_I was shocked by this._

"_Lucas, I really want this. If I go back to my Island alone, I will be just that, alone. If I go with you maybe we can get a chance to know each other a little better."_

_Lucas smiled at me and asked._

" _Do you have an internex connection on your Island?"_

_The Captain just looked at him and smiled and said._

"_Yes but it's not as fast as the ones your used to on SeaQuest."_

_The next day we were on a boat heeding towards my Island, a solitary dolphin played in the wake from our bow. Both of us knew that it was Darwin, who had been released from the SeaQuest, he of course had decided to tag along with his favorite playmates Lucas and myself. _

_Once we got to the Island, I gave Lucas a quick tour of the house and showed him the guest bedroom which Lucas gusted my son Robert had might have had, I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't quite sure as I didn't talk to him or anyone for that mater about my family._

_Lucas left his stuff in the room and changed into a bathing suit to go and play with Darwin for a little bit. He stopped by the kitchen were he saw me looking through the cupboard and the fridge to see if all the supplies I had ordered were there. Lucas told me that he was going out to play with Darwin for a bit, as he left I told him that I would call him for lunch. When he left through the front door I noticed a lot of scars on his back and wondered were he had gotten those from I decided to ask him about them later or maybe to wait for him to tell me about them himself._

_Later that evening, after we both had gone to sleep, for some reason I woke up and decided to check on Lucas and I saw that he wasn't in his bed. I went down the stairs and saw that Lucas was on the couch watching TV with his computer on his lap talking to his friend Wolfman on the Internex. Lucas then singed off and yawned but he didn't go upstairs to bed as I had expected him to do, he just put his computer down on the coffee table and lay back and continued to watch TV. I came over to him and said_

"_Why are you up so late?"_

"_Can't sleep, I'm tired but I just can't fall asleep. I've always had that problem since I was a little kid. I can't get to sleep the first couple of nights I'm in a new place."_

"_Robert was like that too. Why don't you sit up for a second so I can sit on the couch next to you?"_

_Lucas sat up and I grabbed a pillow and asked Lucas to lay down on it. I then began stroking his hair and just looking into his eyes, in a way that I had never before, I saw love in the teen's eye. I also saw a lost little boy in them, a boy who wanted to tell someone something about himself, but was afraid to do so._

"_Is there something that you want to tell me?"_

_Lucas looked at me with a look of panic in his eyes and said._

"_Not really Captain, Why do you ask?" I then gently I said to him._

"_I saw the scars on your back and was wondering about them."_

_Lucas suddenly tensed up and his breathing quickened, he also sat up and I saw a look of fear in his eyes. I said to Lucas in a calm voice._

"_Just relax kido, I didn't mean anything by that, I'm just curious that's all."_

_Lucas then calmed down a little bit and begin to tell me about how his father had beaten him and that the scars on his back where from when his dad had used his belt on his back. He told me how his father had called him an 'arrogant piece of shit' and told him that he was acting like a smart ass all the time, that he was a show off. He told me how this had started when he was in Junior high school and continued through high school. He told me how he had started Junior High School at the age of five._

_He also told me how he had started high school when he was eight years old. He then told me about how he had begun at Stanford University at the age of eleven. I took this all in and just stared at the teen and wondered why anyone would beat there son because he was smart. Smart was just putting it mildly I knew that he was a genius. I then did something that neither one of us had expected I grabbed Lucas and held him in a tight embrace, the two of us just sat there. Me with Lucas's head on my shoulder stroking his back, Lucas had started crying during this, I just comforted him. I knew from raising my son Robert that sometimes you just needed to be there for your children (which I wasn't enough), and from what Lucas had just told me he didn't think that his parents had ever been there for him._

_Over the next two weeks Lucas and I got to know each other fairly well, Lucas told me about how he had been dumped on the SeaQuest. I wondered how true that story was as I had heard about someone developing a device capable of translating dolphin sounds into human speech and that the UEO was interested in it. I myself told him about the family I had once had. Then one night after Lucas had woken me with a nightmare he had been having, he had actually called out to me with his mind. It felt exactly like the time that Amanda had done it to me, I was puzzled was Lucas like her and her family, was he like me as well. I go to his room and just talked to him and help him calmed down. Lucas then told me that he had a dream about a week before he came on to the SeaQuest. He said that it was about a beautiful woman named Carol._

"_That was my wife's name." Lucas nodded and said._

"_Yeah I know. I later realized who she was when I saw a picture of her in your quarters. Anyway in the dream she told me that I was going to meet someone special that would help me find love, and that I would also help them to find themselves again."_

_I smiled and realized that I had a similar dream about a week before Bill Noyce had come to see me, I told Lucas this and the two of us just some how knew that we had shared something very special._

Back in the present Doctor Westphalen turned to Lucas and said.

"Young man, I really need to get that appendix out of you before your symptoms get worse." Lucas looked at her and gowned.

Dr. Westphalen just said to him "come on, you know it won't hurt."

Lucas smiled and said "yaeh I know, it's just that I don't really like operating rooms much."

"I can understand that perfectly, after all you've been through. Do you want me to sedate you before I take you in?"

Lucas just nodded, and then she showed him to a little room where she gave him a gown and a pair of paints to put on while she got the Captain to sign the necessary paper work, after all, he was Lucas's legal guardian, well Lucas was onboard the SeaQuest.

A couple of hours later, Lucas woke in the recovery room with Captain Bridger holding his left hand. His right hand was draped around his teddy bear. Which he realized that the Captain had gotten for him from his quarters. Dr. Westphalen looked at him and smiled she wondered why Lucas still had a teddy bear, she knew now, was not the time to ask but she figured she already knew the reason, even though he was 15 according to his birth records she knew that there was part of him that was still just a young kid who looked at the world like a child. His life had been bad, really bad and she realized that the teddy bear was probably his only comfort in his troubled life. He looked at Kristine, then at his teddy bear and said.

"My mum gave him to me when I was four, just before my first operation. He was the first things I ever saw when I woke up. I've always slept with him ever since. I know I'm fifteen and some people might consider it odd that I still sleep with him. Hell! Even in college my roommates made fun of me for it."

"I understand perfectly why you sleep with him, and you are not the only one onboard who has something that they sleep with for comfort."

Lucas then said he was tired and fell asleep again. Kristen looked at Nathan.

"Nathan, if you need to go to the bridge, you can leave him with me. He'll be just fine." Nathan Bridger just looked at her and said.

"It's alright, I've told the senior staff about the situation down here and I told them that I will be with him for the next little while. Besides they can always call me if anything happens."


	3. The Story of the Vocorder

Chapter 3

The Story of the Vocorder -

Lucas woke up the next morning in med bay wondering where he was. He looked around at his surroundings and realized where he was. Just as he had woken up Doctor Westphalen walked over to him and said "how are you feeling today

young man?"

Lucas groaned and said "better then yesterday and I feel a little hungry can

I have something to eat?"

Dr. Westphalen looked at him and said "it's good your feeling better, but I

think you should wait a little bit longer before you have something to eat.

Now is there anything else I can get you?"

Lucas looked up at her and said "only if the Captains not busy right now?"

Just then Captain Bridger walked in the med bay to check on Lucas. He saw

that he was awake and talking to Kristine Westphalen. He walked over to

them and said "I not busy right now why, do you ask?"

Lucas looked up and smiled at him and said "I was just wondering where you were. I wanted to thank you for getting Daniel for me."

The Captain smiled at his youngest crew member. Doctor Westphalen was puzzled and asked "who's Daniel?"

Lucas looked up to her and nodded to his Teddy Bear which he still had next to him. He said "I decided to give him my middle name because I always thought it was kind of stupid to name it something to cute"

Doctor Westphalen smiled at him and said "well to bad that is cute."

Lucas just laughed at that comment. "Some of the girls in college thought so to. He's been with me though my worst and best times. Sometimes he was my only comfort, especially when my parents abandoned me."

He then looked up at Bridger and Dr. Westphalen and said "I never really told you why I was upset, when we all got a holiday because of World Power going online."

They both looked at him and Bridger said "well you did say it was because your father cared more about the project then you."

"It was a little more then that," Lucas began to say "Let me start from the beginning as what I told you then was only part of it. You see my dad was always useless with computers unless I helped him out. Well he was developing the systems for World Power he forced me to help him do it. I basically did much the same thing as I did with UEO command in developing the systems that run the new SeaQuest. However unlike the UEO, my father never gave me credit for anything I did. So basically I was mad at him not for being there but I was mad because he was using programs I invented without giving me credit."

Captain Bridger looked at him and said "ever since I met you I have always wondered why you were so secretive about the Vocorder?"

Lucas smiled at him and said "It's the one thing on this boat that I actually own the exclusive rights to. I started developing it well I was in college at Stanford University; I had always had this bizarre attraction to dolphins for some reason. Anyway one day I came across an article talking about using sign language to communicate with dolphins by some one by the name of Bridger. I tried to find out more on this person but pretty much came up empty handed. I got this idea one time daydreaming well I was doing some research for one of my Artificial Intelligence courses, what if it were possible to create a computer program that could translate the sounds of dolphins into a language that humans could understand. I Began working on it just for fun at first and then one day just as I was finishing my masters I showed it to one of my professors who suggested that I do it as the theses for my PHD. I had never really thought about it much, I mean what good would a doctorate of A.I., get me. I began work on it anyways just as something to do I used money that my Mom had given me to rent an apartment in San Diego and I got myself a Job at Sea World as a dolphin trainer, I told them about what I wanted to do and at first they were thinking 'this kids is crazy, so what he's a genius with an IQ that can't be measured, why should we hire him', eventually they did and at the age of 14 I had my first real job. I started my research as soon as I stated my training. I would often be found at the dolphin tank with my laptop and a very crud version of the Vocorder attached to an underwater speaker. And that's were the Vocorder began."


	4. Inside Lucas's room

Later that day Lucas was felling allot better and was beginning to annoy Dr. Westphalen as only he could. He kept trying to get out of bed and was trying to flirt with every female that came into med bay that day. Eventually she was so annoyed with his behaviour she sent for the Captain to take him back to his own quarters, and also watch over him until she came to check on him. 

The Captain came and helped his youngest crew member back to his quarters.

Once they got there Lucas asked the Captain to turn on his laptop for him, well he was doing this Lucas turned on a monitor he had over his bed a picked up a trackball mouse and a keyboard from a shelf by his bed. Lucas then lay on his bed staring up at the screen. He opened up one of his music files labelled college rock band. The captain saw this on the screen of his laptop and wondered what that meant, just as he was about to ask Lucas he saw him changing the picture in the background to what looked like a group of college kids with instruments and a teenage boy with a guitar in his hands poising some what like Angus Young on the cover of AC/DC Highway to Hell album. He then looked over to Lucas and saw him playing air guitar to just that song, he turned to him and said "I have a few questions for you young man, one what's with the folder labelled College Rock Band and Two why does that look like a picture of you about a year ago."

Lucas looked up at the man and debated about weather to answer him or not. He thought that after what he had just told him about the Vocorder yesterday he figured it would be best to be honest with him. Lucas looked over to the captain and said "to answer both your questions at the same time, when I was in my second year of college some of my dorm mates wanted to start a rock band the only problem was they didn't have a guitar player, I mentioned to one of them that my Mom had made me take guitar lessons when I was a little younger then I was then, and am now. Anyway they asked me if I could play electric guitar. I told them that I had only played a regular one but was willing to try and play an electric one. One of them, a close friend of mine called Jason, had an old Gibson SG that his brother had given to him before he ended up buying a guitar of his own. Jason ended up teaching me to play it a little bit better then I could before. We practiced for a few weeks before our first gig at a local bar that was willing to let me in only to play and not have any drinks. It was probably one of the hardest things for me to do, as I was standing on a stage with my friends with a guitar in my hands, about to play before a group of complete strangers who had been drinking for most of the night. We started out doing the classic AC/DC song Highway to Hell, during the intro I just kind' a stood there playing my guitar like any one else might, but as our lead singer a friend of mine by the name of Jordan stated singing the first few lines of the song I just started playing it the way I saw Angus do it in a video that they had shown me. I started running around the stage and duck-walking across it, when Jordan got to the end of the song I slid across the stage and stuck the neck of my guitar between his legs well still playing it. He looked down and said 'getting a little low there Lucas', the audience just laughed at that and gave us a huge round of applause."

The Captain looked at Lucas and smiled at him and said "how come you've never told anyone any of this before?"

"Well my dad was never too thrilled about me playing guitar so I always kept it secret from everyone. They eventually had me dressing in a school boy uniform; I also sang a few songs myself."

"What songs did you sing with them?"

"One of the songs I sang was Both Sides of the Story by Phil Collins"

"That's an interesting song for you to have chosen."

"I actually didn't chose that one of my friends handed the lyrics to me and said 'this song reminds me of you a little, especially the second verse' I looked at it and said 'man that's exactly what happened before my parents divorced, but if I'm going to sing it I want to make a little change to it.' I ended up changing it from

"**_A neighbourhood peace is shattered it's the middle of the night young faces hide in the shadows, while they watch their mother and father fight he says she's been unfaithful, she says her love for him has gone and the brother shrugs to his sister and says "looks like it's just us from now on_**"

, to

"_A neighbourhood peace is shattered it's the middle of the night a young face hides in the shadows, while he watches his mother and father fight she says he's been unfaithful, he says her love for her has gone and the boy shrugs to himself and says "looks like it's just me from now on_"

Captain Briger looked at him and said "I was in a bar near Stanford one time and a group of students came on and played that song well a boy who looked almost to young to be there sang it with the lyrics you just told me about, I now know that boy was you that night."

Lucas nodded to the captain and said "So what did you think of the rest of the set, that night."

The captain looked over to Lucas and said "it was really intrusting and I liked when you came back after the intermission dressed in a schoolboy outfit to play AC/DC."

The captain started looking around Lucas's room, who of course noticed this, out of the corner of his eye well he was chatting with one of his friends on the internet. He saw the captain looking at has desk which had a pile of papers on it, most of them contained complex equations that the Captain was sure only Lucas would understand, however some of them contained sketches of dolphins. Most of the sketches seemed to be of Darwin. The Captain looked at them closely and said to Lucas "I never knew you could draw like this."

Lucas looked over to him and said "It's just something I start doing when I'm board, I took a few art classes in high school and one or two in college. As you can also see I like to do complex math equations too."

The Captains attention was then drawn to the bookshelf above the computer desk. It contained a number of computer textbooks along with ones on marine biology and physics. He also saw books on astronomy and a couple of books on linguistics. There was also a copy of the Hitch Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy complete trilogy in five parts that looked to be well read as did the copy of Lord of the Rings next to it. "Interesting book collection textbooks and then the Hitch Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Lord of the Rings, have you read all of them."

Lucas looked over to the captain again and said "Lord of the Rings and Hitch

Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy yes, but I've only read about half the textbooks as there mostly reference materials for my thesis."

"How's that going?"

Lucas put down his keyboard turned to the captain and said "Unfortunately I haven't had much time for it lately as I was busy the last couple of months designing the new systems for SeaQuest II, and fixing the bugs in the new systems. But I am hoping to get back to it soon. I was actually thinking of asking you to look over it for me as I'm dyslexic and sometimes have a hard time reading over it."

The captain looked at him with a look of surprise on his face did Lucas just tell him that he was dyslexic. "How come you never told me that before?"

"It's never usually a problem for me as most of the work I do around here is on the computers, so it never came up."

Lucas returned to his online conversation with Wolfman and Julianna. While the Captain sat on the chair in front of Lucas's desk he then saw three binders on the books shelf, one was ladled Prof. Martison backup, the Captain pulled this one off the shelf and flipped it open, and he saw that all it contained was about 200 CD-ROMs. "What's this" he said holding up the binder to show Lucas, who looked over to see what he was holding up.

"That's the backups for his entire knowledgebase and the program itself. I started that when I rewrote the program for this boat. I did it so I wouldn't have to do it again if you decide to crash the SeaQuest again."

The Captain looked at him and laughed saying "don't worry I won't be doing that again."

After putting that one back he picked up the next one that was much thicker and had no title on it, he opened it up and found that it also contained

CD-ROMs; he estimated that there must be at least 3 or 4 hundred of them. He figured this must be the backup for the Vocorder.

Lucas again looked over to see what the captain was looking at, "that's the backup for the Vocorder. The first 20 disks I copied the week before the

SeaQuest went down."

Just then Doctor Westphalen came in to check on him, she knocked on the door and waited for a response. Lucas heard it and told whomever it was to come in.

Dr. Westphalen opened the door and said "I hope I'm not interrupting anything but I'm just here to check on Lucas."

She walked over to his bed and asked him how he was feeling; she checked and changed the IV that he still had in his arm. She smiled at him when she saw that he was chatting with his friends on the internet, she figured if he could do that he probably wasn't feeling too bad. She then asked him if there was anything that he need. Lucas yawned before saying "yeah maybe some sleep."

"Do you want some help getting comfy?" she asked.

Lucas sleepily said "yeah that would be nice, and I'm sorry about this morning in med bay I was still kind of out of it from the drugs you were giving me."

He then signed off his computer and put the keyboard and mouse back on the shelf were he kept them. When he reached up to turn off the monitor Dr Westphalen did it for him. Lucas just smiled at her and said "Thanks."

Next both her and the Captain helped Lucas with the covers on his bed as he got comfortable under them. The Captain ruffled Lucas's hair and said "goodnight kiddo I hope you feel better soon."

Captain Briger and Dr. Westphalen then left his room after turning out the light. As the left the captain saw Darwin floating in the Aqua Tube beside Lucas's bed and knew that he would be fine. He took one last look around the "organised cause" that was Lucas's room and thought about how much he had found out about him both yesterday and today. Lucas was still a great mystery to him, but he was gradually finding out more about him.


End file.
